"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

So, tonight was a better night in the studio than either of the nights this past weekend.  Not sure how that happens, exactly, but I'll take it. There was a bit of acoustic stuff tonight.  Some better work on figuring out "Santa Fe Girl," by Jackie Greene.  I'm fairly certain there's a capo at the fourth fret, and that the song is in C (or, in E without the capo).  I don't have it all down yet, but it's a much better start on figuring it out than I got the other day. As for the electric side of things, it wasn't the blues that caught my attention tonight (although that was the original plan).  Instead, I worked through some theory stuff, and finally drilled some of it into my head enough that it ought to stick, which means that I can start adding a bit more information soon. Pretty good day, if you ask me.

Another decent day today. I spent some time in the studio tonight, part of it with the electric, and just a little bit of time with the acoustic tonight as well. What I had wanted to do was play along with some of the blues stuff on my iPod, but when I went to work through some Clapton, my mini-speakers were dead and in need of charging.  Instead of working through blues stuff tonight, I picked up the acoustic while charging the speakers. I've been listening to a lot of Jackie Greene lately, so I went there with the acoustic in my hands.  He uses a capo frequently for his guitar parts, so tonight I briefly attempted to figure out "Santa Fe Girl" from his 2003 release Rusty Nails .  Didn't make a whole lot of progress on it tonight, but I think tomorrow will be a better day for that.  I did , however, double check the Soundgarden riff from yesterday and discover that I wasn't dead on by any means, but I was pretty close, so I'll take that as a win.  It ha

Today was okay. I got some housekeeping stuff done in the studio that had been on my list for quite some time.  I got a few posters put into frames, and finally got the space heater moved out of the studio from this past winter.  Now that it's almost July I'm mostly convinced I won't need it for a few months at least. On the playing side, I worked on a few different things today, most specifically, I: 1) Went through some of Soundgarden's "Fell On Black Days" by ear.  The full tab is in the latest issue of Guitar World , so I'll have it for more focused learning, but it was fun to play around with it a bit on my own before I go back and see how close I came. 2) Worked through some of the stuff on the posters I framed.  They're crammed full of information, and one of the reasons I wanted to get them into frames is so I could study from them.  There's scale and chord information, including patterns and chord construction info.  Both posters h

Wow, did this week go fast!  I didn't get as much time in with the backing tracks during the work week as I hoped I would going into it, but that said, I felt like what happened  tonight was a good way to get myself ready for the weekend ahead. I got into the studio a bit on the late side, but with enough energy that I was pretty confident of getting something solid done, or at least putting in a bit of good work before I crashed for the evening.  I wanted something to loosen up my fingers, something that would provide a bit of a warm-up for tomorrow and Sunday, when I would have more time and energy to devote to practicing.  Knowing that, I went for one of the booklets that came with a DVD I had gotten from Guitar World , one of those things with pages and pages of lead/scale exercises and small snippets of rhythm guitar.  Just enough to push you down the path of improvement without giving you too much to focus on. I keyed in on a couple of the scale exercises, and ran those

Tonight didn't feel quite as crisp, playing-wise as last night did, but it was still a good night.  Tonight it was the major scale's turn to be run all the way up the neck.  The patterns I've been focused on from The Guitarist's Guide To Scales Over Chords are feeling better underneath my fingers.  For sure the major scale patterns and their corresponding pentatonics.  I'm okay with the minor scale (but not as comfortable as I wish I was), but am fine with the minor pentatonic stuff the book highlights.  I still come back to the fact that my scale knowledge and my lead playing are the biggest aspect of my playing that is lacking right now, and I'm determined to change that by the end of the summer. I didn't do anything with backing tracks tonight, but a lot of that it definitely on the list for the weekend.  Instead, I took a quick look at the first workout that Steve Vai did for Guitar World back in 1990, and had a bit of fun with that.  One of my lon

Know what's hard to believe?  The #STARTexp, which I spent most of last summer, and a good portion of last fall working on in a musical context, kicked off a year ago today.  I won't say that I've killed it at every opportunity since then, but I will definitely stand by the statement that working on those three songs in 24 days was the event that pumped some life back into my musical exploits.  Any time you work on something every day (and write about it) for as long as I've been documenting my journey to regain my musical chops, there are bound to be some times when the energy level and the progress are at low-tide.  I'm never terribly proud of those moments, but even in the low moments, the Start Experiment  has helped me to understand the level of consistent dedication it is going to take to get where I want to be. Sometimes I think that my blog really began a year ago, that all of the work I did before then was just prep work for what has started in the last t

Not really a whole lot to report today.  I got home fairly late tonight, and didn't have much time in the studio, so most of what I got a chance to do today was run notes for scales in my head between calls at work.  It's more a question of dusting off old knowledge than it is learning anything new, in that regard. I really need to start picking one scale each day, and playing it in all twelve keys.  Even if it's just one pattern of one scale each day.  We did that sort of thing in classes in junior high and high school, and it really helped me then.  I've said it before, but it bears repeating, if only to get it through my head that it's a good idea.  I need to incorporate some of those approaches to my studying/learning/playing now. Picked up the new issue of Guitar World , and the new record by Ed Sheeran tonight. Tomorrow needs to be an awesome day for music, because today didn't have enough of that in it.

Felt good to get back in the studio tonight, even for a little bit. After what was essentially a three day absence (when you factor in my work day), it was just good to get back in there tonight.  My primary goal heading into the evening was just to play around a little bit with some of the backing tracks I got loaded onto the iPod over the weekend.  I did just that, and I can tell that they are going to be a big help in my comfort level when it comes to working on my soloing. If I were to set a single goal for the week, it would be this: to work with the backing tracks every night, improving my comfort with soloing and scales.  Studying the formulas for constructing the various scales, as well as getting reacquainted with speaking note names as I play them will help.  I've got the notes written out in each key, as well as a sheet with scale degrees for about twenty-five different scales. That's where the studying needs to take me this week. I probably didn't get quit

Long story short, I picked up the Mrs. in Cedar Rapids late last night, and we stayed the night there, before going to DSM today for a brief visit with her brother.  Mostly to see their new baby.  It's almost ten minutes after 11 here, and we just walked in the door, so yeah, more detailed music updates will have to wait until tomorrow (again).

So, yeah.  Not the post I expected to write tonight, but late in the day, I needed to go and pick up the Mrs. in Cedar Rapids.  Consequently, no post relating to the day's musical adventures, due to a significant lack of time.  I'll post something more official tomorrow.

So, I got to the bottom of the whole Guitar Techniques jam track issue today.  Apparently they don't show up when the disc appears in iTunes, they are hidden in a separate folder elsewhere on the disc, so you actually have to do a bit of digging in order to find them.  On the plus side, I now have 60(!) of them imported into iTunes, which should keep me going for quite some time.  Knowing that I've got even more of them out there waiting to be uploaded is kind of awesome, too, though. In other studio news, I wound up setting aside (for tonight, anyway) the plans I had started formulating yesterday.  They had to do with some of the other stuff I've set aside that my brother thought made for cool learning tools.  Things I was planning on working off of anyway, but the extra bit of input doesn't hurt in that area at all. So, The Mrs. gets home tomorrow night, which leaves me almost the whole day tomorrow to spend in the studio, having some fun with all of the tracks I

Tonight felt productive in the studio. I started where my brother and I had left off in our discussions on Tuesday night, taking the time and starting to go through the lesson on classical harmony from this year's February issue of Guitar Techniques.  It's always good to talk about theory with my brother, and listening to him explain something helps me out, but what really drives it home for me is coming back in the next day or so, and tracking through the material on my own. After that, I played through some of the scale patterns that I've been going over of late.  Not only are the patterns getting easier, but I'm getting faster at picking a random spot on the neck and knowing which key I'm in.  I know I need to be smarter about my approach to studying, and the order I work on things, but I also know that I'm getting more comfortable with things that have always just barely eluded me. After that, I gathered up a few of the GT CDs that come with the magazi

Ever have one of those moments that happens at what seems like the perfect time?  That pretty much happened to me today.  I don't get a lot of comments on my blog, but I got one today that asked about goals and noted that things seem scattered.  I'd be the last person in the world to deny the truth in that statement.  Ever have something that starts out with what seems to be a singular goal, and then ends up splintering off in so many different directions that the initial goal gets lost?  That's one way to look at the last four years of my writings here.  I've made progress, no doubt, but it has lacked a definite focus for a lot of that time.  Moving forward, that needs to change. When it all started almost four years ago, I was about to turn 30, and coming out of a relationship that had spent two years stifling my playing and my creativity.  I wanted to get back into playing again, to dust off and repair my chops, and get better from there.  Along the way, I met so

So, tonight was an EPIC night in the studio. My dad and my brother are in town overnight tonight, which means that, for the first time in forever, my brother and I had a chance to head into the studio and talk shop. It was entirely theory-based, and as he has a much more extensive knowledge base than I do, it was essentially the two of us going through a huge theory lesson from an issue of Guitar Techniques , with him in the lead, and me following along and trying to keep up.  Basically, it was a night that I wish didn't have to be cut short because of travel (for them) and work (for me) responsibilities, because I could have traded songs and talked music until well after the sun came up. More on all of this later, but for now I really, really need to sleep.

Short post tonight, not due to a lack of music, but more due to the giant storms that are rolling through town as I type this.  I don't want to be online for too long, but suffice it to say that it has very much been an acoustic sort of night here.  Something about giant storms makes me want to grab an acoustic out of the studio, and just sit in the living room and play, listening to the rain fall. Oddly enough, with the guitar in my hands, all I want to do is work on the scales and theory that I usually reserve for the electric side of things lately.  Either way, it will help strengthen my fretting hand while reinforcing the studying. Definitely a good day.  Not quite enough listening in it, but other than that, it has been solid.  And!  My Dad and Brother are coming through tomorrow on their way back from California, and they're staying here.  So the brother and I will have at least a little bit of time to talk music and catch up on life.

It was a good day in the studio today.  Not quite as much time in there as I expected at the start of the day, but a good day nonetheless. Tonight was the first opportunity I've really had to seriously dive into things since the Mrs. left on Friday.  I've tried to balance the list of things I want to get done with the music, and haven't been as successful initially with finding that balance.  My hope is that, if I can get a lot of the house stuff done early in the week, that I'll then be free to spend a LOT of time on the music side of things as I go. That said, I circled the wagons tonight, and started to formulate a plan for the week.  I went back over some of the scale stuff I've been working on the last few weeks.  I still don't feel like I've quite got the grasp of them that I'd like to have, or that I should have.  Most of that, I think, stems from not spending enough time in each of my practice sessions.  I feel like I keep getting to the poin

Tonight was interesting.  I watched a 90 minute documentary on MTV about Ed Sheeran.  About three quarters of the way through, he tells a story about meeting Damien Rice in a pub when he was 14, and how that five minute conversation essentially changed his life, and put him on the path he's been on for the last decade.  It was arguably the coolest moment in a pretty great documentary. I had never really sat down and considered the similarities between the two, but it was an interesting point, and brought me back around to Damien Rice again.  Oh, what I wouldn't give for another Damien Rice record. When I finally hit the studio tonight, I went for acoustic stuff as opposed to the Strat.  Tomorrow is the first (and only) full day off that I'll have before next weekend.  It's going to be a big day for me, I hope.  Lots of acoustic work, lots of electric.  I don't even know what it is I want to work on tomorrow, just that I want to spend as much of the day as possib

So, as short as last night's post was, it outlined two things that I wanted to get done (or at least get started on) today.  They were: 1) Getting the recent music purchases uploaded into iTunes. That part was the easy part.  It went quickly, but still needs to be added onto the iPod.  That'll definitely happen tomorrow, though. and 2) Putting some thought into the acoustic side of things for the summer. Oddly enough, I think there's going to be more on the acoustic list than there is on the electric side of things.  In the process of picking my way through iTunes tonight, I've run across twelve songs already.  I'm excited to see what else crops up over the course of the weekend that will help to set the tone for the rest of the summer. I work in the morning, but the afternoon is wide open, and I can't wait to get into the studio tomorrow and get started on things.

Today was a decidedly low-key day in the studio. I did get a bit of playing done tonight.  It was mostly lead-based yet again, although there was a bit of songwriting at the end. One of the things I need to get started on tomorrow is the list for the acoustic side of things.  The electric list has 14 songs on it at the moment, and the acoustic list has about 3.  The Mrs. leaves tomorrow morning for her week in Detroit, so the next 9 days are poised to be filled to the brim with music. I want to get the new music uploaded into iTunes tomorrow, too, and dive into the new Jack White disc.

Got into the studio on the early side tonight.  The Mrs. got home late from work, which gave me a bit of extra time to duck in there and make some noise. I worked on lead guitar stuff again tonight, picking another song off of my list and diving into learning at least a little bit of it by ear.  I think I'm trying to get a bit of everything underneath my fingers before I dive in and work on things individually. I can tell that I've improved this year, because some of the songs I picked out I haven't glanced at in a long time, but things seem to be coming together quicker this time around.  I think the next ten days or so are going to be pretty big days for me.  With the Mrs. gone in Detroit, my plan is to spend as much time as I can being loud and practicing. Listened to a bit of the new music in the car on the way to and from work today.  Still haven't cracked open the Jack White, though.  That seemed like a big stereo & headphones sort of thing.

I got out a legal pad in between calls at work, and tried to work up a "perfect summer" list of songs to incorporate into my acoustic/electric plan. The electric stuff was way easier of a place to start than the acoustic side of things.  Some of that is due to the fact that I've had some of the electric songs I picked on some sort of list for learning for a long, long time. That said, I followed through, and typed it up when I got home tonight.  This will be a set of lists I'm going to print out and post in the studio, so that every time I walk in there, I see it and am motivated to keep working on things on a consistent basis. When I got into the studio tonight, I stuck to the list, but jumped around between a bunch of different songs. Picked up a lot of new music today, too, most notably, the new Jack White record.  Haven't had a chance to listen to any of it yet, but there will be plenty of time for that over the next couple of weeks. I'll post my

So, it's definitely going to be a summer of acoustic improvement and lead playing. Not sure where that decision came from today, but it popped into my head at work, and it feels like a final decision.  There will be other stuff that will come up, I'm sure, but the main focuses this summer will be on those two areas of my playing. Now that I say that, I have been thinking about classic solos (and songs) a lot of late, while at the same time thinking about the songs and solos that made me want to pick up a guitar in the first place, not to mention all of the things that have kept the fire burning all these years.  I want/need to be good enough to play all of those things. I also want to be able to sit outside this summer and play some acoustic, so I've got to learn enough songs/work on that side of my playing as well. Didn't start digging through backing tracks yet, but I did spend some time tonight working through some lead stuff.  I'm really feeling more rel

Tonight was fun.  I'm starting to understand a few things a bit better, and I've gotten to the point (finally?) where what I really need to do is just spend as much time as I can in the studio, just woodshedding.  Whether that's playing along with records (like I did tonight), or making a project out of finding every single backing track I have, so that I've got a ton of stuff to play along with, is immaterial.  It's more likely than not that both will happen, especially because I've got a lot of jam tracks that have come with all of my issues of Guitar Techniques over the years.  The part that's going to prove interesting, or at least time consuming, is getting them all in one place, and all on my iPod, so that I can crank them up through my mini-speakers and just jam out.  I know well enough where they all are right now, but I want to get everything all in one place, so that anything I want is at my fingertips.  If nothing else, that'll be a decent

Tonight was good. I got into the studio tonight, and started where I've been beginning the last few weeks: with the electric.  Soon enough, however, I found myself switching over to the acoustic shortly thereafter.  Somehow, doing that always feels like coming home.  Don't get me wrong, there's something about a wall of distortion that will always have the power to solve everything at the end of a long day. Maybe it's because I've been listening to more acoustic-based stuff lately, but tonight crystallized one thing for me: I need to play more acoustic again.  More specifically, I need to get back to the Acoustic Goldmine book, and the lessons therein. Side note: The Mrs. leaves for Detroit next weekend, and will be gone for 9 days at General Assembly, the big annual church gathering.  I'm already wondering just how much music I can feasibly cram into 9 days while still working 8 hours a day. One thing is for sure: if I'm going to get as much done

After not getting much of anything accomplished in the studio yesterday, I wanted to get in there tonight and at least make sense of how I want the weekend to go. Having taken a night "off," essentially, I felt like my fingers were in pretty good shape.  There was a fluidity to my playing tonight that was really encouraging, and I feel like every time I sit down to lay, the patterns and the scales come a little bit easier than they did previously.  I know I've over used the "another piece to the puzzle" analogy recently, but I really do feel like it gets a little bit easier every time. So, even if tonight was a small piece of the puzzle, it was still good to make a start on the weekend.  Tomorrow and Sunday will be when the real work gets done, though.

Today was the quietest music day I've had in a long time.  Mostly due to a spontaneous visit from my Mom. Didn't get into the studio tonight, but did have time to do some listening on the way to and from work today.  Finished off the first Jackie Greene record, and had another one, 2009's Small Tempest , arrive in the mail.  I've got the other two records he has put out that I didn't already have (2003's Rusty Nails , and 2004's Sweet Somewhere Bound ) coming. That's really all I've got today, but with the weekend here tomorrow, it will be a great weekend for music.

I told myself at the start of the day that I had but one goal for my time in the studio tonight.  It was this... I needed to get my multiple notebooks filled with thoughts and ideas regarding my practice binder/musical journey condensed down into a single notebook, as it would be far easier to have everything all in one spot than it would be to have bits and pieces of my plan spread out all over the place. I got that done tonight, and I tried as best as I could to get things put in some semblance of order in doing so.  I wasn't entirely successful (I'm sure), but I still feel like that was a big step for the foundation of everything that is still to come. And, hey, I got to do some listening while I worked on it, so that was awesome.  Today's record for that time was Gone Wanderin' by Jackie Greene.  A really great debut album.

Today was productive.  I spent part of my time in between calls at work today thinking over last night's time in the studio (and subsequent blog post), and jotting down a few notes about everything that I had laid out on the studio floor.  Inevitably, this ends up taking the form of a list breaking down how I want to organize things for effective learning & practice going forward. This is one of those things that seems to happen at least once a year, usually around this time, but it never seems to end up completed to my liking (which is probably why it keeps coming up).  This year, I'm determined to get things set up the way they should've been a long time ago.  Part of "put up or shut up" is acknowledging the mistakes I've made in the past, and working hard, so that they don't keep happening. Along those same lines, one of my other big hang-ups is starting a new notebook every time I try to reshuffle my thoughts on this.  The end result of which i

Tonight was fun. I wrote last night about starting up some old habits, and continuing to do the things that feel like they are working at the moment as I make a big push toward the end of the fourth year of the blog. Tonight I sat down and surrounded myself with all of the resources and notebooks I think this push will entail, and I cherry-picked a few things to work on tonight, but mostly I looked through everything to determine (again) if what I had laid out before me belonged, and to see if, through everything, I can see where the path forward is heading.  I didn't expect everything to be crystal clear, and it's not, but I definitely see a couple of things clearly: 1) No matter how slowly I think I'm progressing, I've got myself pointed in the right direction. 2) I have the pieces to the puzzle laid out on the floor of the studio, I just need to finish putting them together. It's going to be a great summer, I think.  One of musical exploration and discov

Today was a strange day.  I had lots of motivation to go into the studio very early in the day, but had other obligations that pulled me away. By the time I got back to things tonight, my energy had waned considerably, and so when I did get into the studio, it wasn't for the extended period of time that I had hoped today would offer.  Still, it was good to be in there.  Just waling through the door and closing it behind me gives me that respite from everything that takes up most of my energy elsewhere. Being in there tonight helped me focus in on at least a few things that are either: 1) working now or 2) had worked previously that I need to re-incorporate into my process when it comes to music. I've been keenly aware the last week or so that I'm coming up on the end of the 4th year of the blog, which means I've been back at this on a decidedly part time basis for a good long while now.  I feel like I've made progress this year, more-so than in years pas